


magnets

by orphan_account



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Pining, Romance, everyone gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-07 18:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19474435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Pretty long after John realised that he and his best friend, Roger were rivals for winning the same guy’s heart, he figured that this enmity had made him lose something that was much more important.





	1. Part 1

Brian squints at the UoL Journal headlines, not just his eyes, his whole face seems to have shrunken to magnify and re-analyse exactly what the piece of bullshit currently etched on his monitor is. The words seem foreign and leave a skunky taste in his mouth as he recites them, synchronised with his eyes mapping over.

This is not the first time Freddie has gone to the insane lengths of posting incredulous things on the university blog, yet it leaves Brian feeling as surprised as the time he’d seen the picture of a dog in the Persian maharaja outfit sitting as the website header and Freddie’s excuse for it was that Jake Gyllenhaal did look a bit like a hyper-excited Lhasa apso.

Brian is infuriated, he probably thinks if he tries to beat Freddie’s face into a pulp and sculpt it into the face of the same open-mouthed and boinked Lhasa apso, he might certainly be able too, in this state of rage.

*******

In the quiet and peaceful library hall, the librarian Jim is snoring in polyrhythm and some freshman kids are beatboxing to it. In the corner by the social anthropology section, a five metres distance to the left, Freddie Mercury has just finished posting the update for the university’s blog.

He feels rather proud, hoping that today’s post would definitely accelerate the number of bravos that the blog receives. Apparently, Headmaster McCartney thought it’d be a good idea to let the student body handle crucial things such as the official university blog on which the university’s national and international reputation depends on. Maybe that tells you a lot about the headmaster’s intellect.

Freddie’s content, lopsided smile sees no onset of the storm that Brian May’s phonecall is bringing. Oblivious as already stated, Freddie picks it up.

“Hello?”

“Die, bitch,” Brian growls from the other end and Freddie falls off his chair, ducking to hide from an imaginary gunshot.

Freddie swallows as Brian enunciates each syllable of his bone-chilling commandment with gritting teeth.

“Headmaster McCartney’s office. NOW. ”

*******

Headmaster McCartney’s office has been strategically designed to look exactly like Professor Dumbledore’s; he even has a plastic phoenix that breathes fire on pressing a button. The best thing the headmaster had ever done with it was to burn Vice-Principal Mary’s hair such that she had to sport a pixie.

The moment Brain enters with Freddie dragged in by a pinched ear, the headmaster beams and strokes his fake moustache. Atrocious, Brian thinks.

“Sir, with all due respect, that moustache is disgusting,” Brian says, straightening his suit jacket and standing authoritatively, having let go of Freddie’s ear.

“Nonsense I look like posh Allen Poe. And why have you brought him, Brian? You said I had put the right guy on the job! This is a surprise!” McCartney marvels.

“If you remember correctly, I said you were putting the wronger guy on the job. The wrongest. Most wrong–whatever.”

The headmaster’s office is not one devoid of the classic pregnant silence. Freddie tries to keep his whines down; Brain really pinched his ear damn bad.

“What is your complaint?” the headmaster says with a disinterested gesture of his hand, “This boy is good enough to survive the green fields so I have no other punishment to offer. How ‘bout you just let him go?”

“He’s making the school blog look like a love showdown!” Brian shouts, his perfectly styled hair falling out of place. Static, Freddie wonders.

“Oh is it so?” the headmaster says, suddenly piqued. Brain's next noise is quite disgruntled because the headmaster looks more interested than repulsed at the statement.

Is it too late to apply as a teacher at another university?

“Please don’t throw me in the green fields,” Freddie pleads, getting up from the floor, with a hand wrapped around his red ear.

“Shush boy. None of that. What love showdown is this that we’re talking about?”

“Uh... Roger Taylor and John deacon are fighting over David from the dance club? It’s on your screen sir–”

“Right right, well they’re good friends I bet it’s feisty,” The headmaster concludes, winking not so surreptitiously at Freddie.

“Ooh you bet it is,” Freddie continues, the glint in his eye mirroring the headmaster’s while Brain stares in awe.

“Sir! You can’t possibly allow fickle love stories to be entered on the university blog!”

“Love stories aren’t fickle Brian,” the headmaster cuts in, making a quick hand sign and shutting Brain up successfully.

“Yeah but I’m sure no one wants to know about this relationship–this post is really unnecessary.”

“What’s unnecessary is that you’re making a giant whale out of this. If Mr Mercury wants to tell the world about a love story then we must all partake in the joy!”

It's one of those moments when Brian wonders how this guy passed for one of the most intelligent people in the nation.

“What. The. Rotating. Fuck.”

“Fantastic language, coming from a senior lecturer.”

*******

Even though the headmaster had spared Freddie, Brian felt more or less obligated to kick his arse and send it flying a la team rocket to the green fields.

Freshmen don’t get why the green fields are a punishment ground when it looks like a perfectly peaceful meadow with yellow butterflies hovering over the pastures. But that’s the nice part. The punishment part of the field is that it’s so comfortable students tend to fall asleep on the grass, and if one does fall asleep on the grass, they’d be graced with a stomp on the face by a hefty Australian cow.

Moo.

Brian’s current state of anger is more inclined towards the fact that recently, he’s been seeing John slack off.

John’s always been distant, he’s one of those students who don’t prefer to keep anything going in their lives besides work. Brian has noticed John doesn’t hang out with his friends unless Freddie bribes him with free Cheese-on-toast. He has always been, in a way, disconnected.

But these days, it’s taking an unusual turn.

John can’t dance as well as he used to, he’s missing classes and if he is spotted in a class, it’s usually one where he isn’t supposed to be or he’s asleep in the back seat.

Freddie probably shouldn’t put his fight with Roger in the spotlight when John seems abnormally too affected by it, Brian deduces.

Brian’s been a senior lecturer for a while and he’s never seen a kid become so [disconnected], it’s like he’s astral projecting while walking.

Worried, Brian confronts him after kicking Freddie in the green fields and ignoring his yap of pleas to let him go.

“John,” Brian says, giving him a pat on the shoulder when he catches the student in the hallway one morning. John looks up like fifty per cent looks up because he looks so weary his body isn’t even performing full functions.

“Morning,” John mumbles and speeds up his walk to leave Brian behind. Brain staggers forward, stopping him with a firmer hand on the shoulder.

“Are you alright, John?” he asks but then John makes a does-this-face-look-alright-to-you expression and Brian bites his tongue, “Wrong question. I uh, we should talk.” Brian is the youngest staff the school has and he's also been friends with Fred since Fred lost his pet iguana in Brian's garden—he's on semi-formal terms with most of his students.

“What do you have to talk to me about?” John says, unemotionally because he can’t really afford to waste energy on emotions.

“I suspect you’ve contracted this virus and it’s draining the life out of you,” Brian says in a frugal attempt at humour. It’s a sad attempt at being as nerdy as John.

“That’d be a parasite. And it’s called depression, sir,” John answers flatly and takes a step away, air displacing the shoulder Brian had put his weight on.

“Do you want to talk to me about it? I’m trying to help,” Brian beseeches, voice tuning extremely concerned.

“I guess...” John looks down and then looks at Brian sadly. The teacher almost sniffs. Oh, my child.

“That’d be okay, sir.”

John’s monotone makes Brian grow even more worried.


	2. Part 2

Brian’s office is ridiculously decorated with a gargantuan poster of Mary J. Blige which he guesses he should remove but then he's too lazy for the job and he sure as hell won’t get Freddie to do it either, pissed as he is at him.

John falls in through the open door right when his classes for the day end, he comes in earlier than expected, Brian winces at how he slumps on the chair, the wrinkling on his forehead forming a labyrinth already. Brian gives him cola and a few seconds to relax since John somehow manages to keep football practice scheduled in between classes sometimes.

“How did this all happen?” Brian asks. John looks pathetic; fighting with his best friend shouldn’t have such a terrible effect on him, should it?

“What are you referring to?”

“The thing over David...everything that leads you here finally,” Brian asks, he wants an answer. He really wants John to take it all out, drop that baggage of emotions but he gives him a comforting look, in case he doesn’t want to say anything.

“You got all night for this sir?”

“Totally.”

*******

_It starts when John is fresh out of the amniotic sac and his parents decide to move to a better place right when he turns three. Methodical is in encoded in their blood so they do move, on John’s fifth birthday, with a house and a new car waiting for them after the flight. John sobs holding his cupcake, and rocks himself to sleep since no one wished him._

_Naturally, his attitude towards the new place is bitter._

_His dad and mum are engrossed in settling down and the process running slower than a stegosaurus’ brain. John goes to pre-school, yells in frustration at the teacher and constantly feels left out not only at school but also at home._

_It’s his sixth birthday when a strange thing happens in that semi-winter-frostbite-humidity season._

_He meets Roger._

_As in, kicks a football right into his ass._

_Following the ass-dilapidating soccer kick, comes John with a chained string of apologies, Roger being the first person to tell him it's fine (which is unnatural, John hasn't had a single person who's been apprehensive of his football skills in the non-chaotic stage and here was Roger picking up the ball and handing it to him like it hadn't just rendered him immobile). John felt a tug of fascination and indebtedness in his heart._

_“You’ve got a mean kick,” Roger said, trying to stand, “You’re like, professional or something.”_

_"Can you walk?" John asked, lips quaking in worry because six-year-old Roger was damn scrawny and looked as fragile as a dying leaf._

_"Yeah. I can," Roger had replied, his gentle hand reaching for John's sweaty ones as he steadied himself. "But not without you."_

"That's oddly too romantic for six-year-olds isn't it? My my, kids these days..." Brian wonders out loud and a vein pops on John's forehead. Since Brian is a teacher, after all, he's willing to shut reprogram his mouth into continuing with the story of 'How I met my best friend' instead of straightaway screaming, "I do not describe our relationship as romantic fuck off"

"Sir?" John asks politely, breaking Brian’s attentive reverie of six-year-olds Roger and John making out under My Little Pony rainbows.

"Oh yes. I'm sorry I lost focus. Continue."

*******

  
_Soon enough, Roger and John became friends over how Roger turned out to be an emotional blackmailer good enough to take that up as a profession, he used the football-to-butt incident and puppy eyes in a package deal to John whenever he needed a favour. Well more than favours, he used the incident as an excuse to hang around John._

_Which was almost all the time._

_And as the seasons changed, the city became more about the thrilling landscape rather than the ever foreboding fact that John was out of place here. Roger made sure to remind him every time, that he meant a lot to him, close as they had grown. He would press his shoulders firmly before bidding goodbye, ruffle his hair, blackmail him into doing things that he knew made John happy inside—John wondered what Roger got out of this, but he kept his questions in the quiet._

_On John's sixteenth birthday, Roger kidnapped him from his window and brought him to the tent. He had camped on the hill a little distance away from the residential block and boy, the view of the night sky was spectacular._

_"Y'know I really appreciate this whole Bear Grylls inspired expedition but you really need to get me home before sunrise,” John breathed out as Roger dragged him up the hill and they began to settle inside the transparent tent._

_"You talk as if you're a vampire; just tell your mum you went jogging."_

_"And how am I supposed to explain how I got out of the house? The door’s locked from the inside idiot."_

_"Shush shut up. I'm already disappointed with myself,” Roger replied, suddenly going glum._

_"Why?" John inquired._

_"Fred called David to ask if he was up for a night out on the hill with us but he gave a flat no. I'm sorry."_

_"It's kinda okay. David's not my boyfriend or anything that he has to be here. I barely know him."_

_"John. Your love for David shoots into outer space like 500 terawatt lasers and you're telling me it's okay?"_

_"Well yeah, it is! I mean I haven't told him or anything. We're just on...different pages."_

_"Right. You're done with your romance novel and he's not even begun with it," Roger scoffs at John’s since-middle school crush._

_John sighed and had sunk back into the sleeping bag, trying to stick closer to Roger to warm himself. “Someday I'll take David to that disco they have over there,” he pointed to a vague spot at the cityscape below them, “...and then ask him to marry me,” John finished, turning his face to grin excitedly at Roger._

_Roger raised an eyebrow to his scalp, “I must say...your idea of love is very disco centric.”_

_John had giggled and punched him lightly after snaking a fist out of his sleeping bag._  
_“What about you Rog?” he asked and Roger began to think instantly, humming to create an answer._

_“The guy I love...I'd just kiss him stupid pinned on any tree. That is if I ever find him.”_

_Letting out a comfortable laugh, John asked, “A tree?”_

_“I think nature enhances romance y’know a lot of romantic movies do rely on the setting being beautiful, so yeah. A tree. Wouldn’t be so bad.”_

_“Okay... Roger Taylor kissing the guy of his dreams after pinning him to a tree. Interesting enough,” John remarked, clapping his hands. Roger smirked._

_“Throw in some snow and possibly a river out of somewhere,” Roger said, just for added effect. And he liked the snow._

_“Well your idea of love is so unrealistic,” John replied, rolling his eyes._

_“I say that entire BS because romance itself is unrealistic. If all of that tree and snow shit actually happens then I'll believe love is true.”_

_“I'll hope with you then,” John sighed and missed how for a brief moment Roger had turned to stare at him. “Only ‘cause I'm your best friend. Because honestly? The probability of you ending up with someone on a snowy day is least likely. It hasn't snowed in years.”_

_Roger shrugs underneath the sleeping bag, “Well a man can hope.”_

_“Hit puberty before hoping at least—you’re still inching shorter than me,” John had mocked and to that Roger punched him and John laughed, thinking that red ants biting into his thigh and the tent that didn't fit his feet was probably the best and worst birthday experience he could have ever had, and as much as he'd wanted to share it with David, whom he was in love with, he was oddly okay with having just Roger._

_Roger was the best friend of all best friends, he realised as he had closed his eyes under the night sky._

********

"So what are you doing to this precious friendship? are you insane? you two need to get back in a ball pit and play dummies!” Brain shouts and then colours in embarrassment. He did not sound like a teacher.

"I suppose not–I mean it's not..." John protests, sounding dejected and Brian morphs to nerved with worry. Not again, He can't let John be sad because of what his asshole best friends doing to him by being an asshole precisely.

"Go on."

*********

_Then came Roger's seventeenth birthday. By then, the news about John being hopelessly infatuated with David spread like the plague all over town. Not really like the plague though, but in a sense, every person John met was annoyed at the unbreakable continuity of his pining._

_The old ladies at the bakery would tease him about it if David happened to be in the same line as him. Then it was the cashier at the supermarket. And even his dog snoozed off while John kept on talking about David to her._

_John was too busy mentally dating the imaginary version of David that he forgot to see if David was actually interested in him. Besides, John's already had expert propaganda of dealing with things by not dealing with them—he wanted to enjoy this high school crush which he already deemed useless to run after (even though he wanted to)._

_On Roger's seventeenth birthday, John put his entire pennyworth of knowledge of baking (with a LOT of help from Ronnie) and made a cake in the shape of a car for Roger (Fifth attempt. Don't ask how the previous went). He crept up the stairs of Roger's ridiculously large house moving through the tiny space between bodies wriggling on the dance floor or any surface available (Roger had wide and weird friend circles). John experiences have often taught him utterly useless lessons but he did receive a lightning strike that night._

_The first mistake he ever made was to not knock on Roger's door. The second was to ever have trusted Roger enough to believe he'd never do something like this._

_It was David, with Roger wrapped around him like a fucking bandage and unmistakably they had been snogging—it hurt John so much to think of it, he couldn't get that heartbreaking night ever out of his mind._

_David was too busy sucking a mark on Roger's neck and Roger saw John. But what John saw was there was no sense of guilt in that gaze. It was as if he wasn't looking at his best friend, he was looking at a fiend._

_John ran out of the house, muttered something to Mrs Taylor along the lines of 'I got a stomach ache. M' sorry. Have a good night' and didn't look back at that door ever again._

_He fed the cake to street dogs that night, seated by the back door of his house, watching as they lapped up the cream in the dark alley while he sobbed, wishing what he'd seen wasn't true. Roger was his best friend; he hoped he would explain, maybe things aren't what they seem. Maybe he's still got a shot with David._

_Maybe._

_But then Roger never bothered to explain._

_John would then often see them together but no hushed whispers arose if they were dating. And every time David smiled apprehensively at Roger's arms wound on his shoulder, John's blood boiled in jealousy and hatred for his best friend who never spoke to him cordially after the incident._

_Asshole supreme._

_Needless to say, in a way John was glad he had to see all of that interaction between the two only for a year; he expected none of that shit in college. Hopefully, he’d even make new friends._

_Both David and Roger end up in the same university as him, as per karma’s ploy of planned attack to bomb his life._

_As it turns out, Roger had all of his classes with him. Without so much a glance, they’d walk by each other; leave no room for the seeds of a conversation by avoiding talking to anyone mutually known. John still loved David, John still assumed Roger had already snatched the love of his life from him and was in the bliss of eternal contentment while watching him suffer._

_John slowly recoiled to his usual life in uni but then the whole fiasco of seeing Roger and David together made his mouth taste like bile all over again._

_He did bump into Roger in the library once, a tsunami of nostalgia almost destroyed all the walls he had built up as he remembered how they used to shit talk space fiction for hours in the high school library and there was a brief moment that Roger looked him in the eye and John knew exactly what sadness looks like in someone's eyes._

_Or a loss. Heavy painful loss._

_John walked away, leaving Roger's mouth open with the words he had prepared to say._

_John knew he wasn't a good judge of character, but that didn't mean he was going to make that mistake twice._


	3. Part 3

"And here am I Sir, brilliant isn't it? I should use this story to make hit fanfic," John says, bags forming under his eyes and to Brian, they look teary. John doesn't say anything until he goes over the table and dumped his backpack.

"I hope you won't deduct my marks for sleeping on your couch," John says and Brian gives him a sad smile, petting his hair as John rests his head on Brian's lap, sobbing a bit.

Roger needs some serious arse-kicking, Brian decided.

******** 

“Deaky!”

Freddie twittered and reached over to the desk John was drooling over, thankfully lectures for the day had finished. Freddie’s form cast a darkening shadow over him like in a horror movie, he got up instantly.

John wipes his mouth and then looks at his Deadpool fanart doodled on the back of his anthropology notes. Ink got smudged. Fuck my life.

"Hey," John says, trying to smile but his eyes close since they're already swelled up. Somewhere in the back, he hears Roger take in a breath. He doesn't know how he was able to distinguish that and chooses to ignore, "what's up?"

"The pictures from the last year's football tournament, you look smashing darling," Fred says as he smothers the table with photographs (for some reason Freddie is not overly fond of soft copy) and John's eyes glisten as he catches the wonderful shots of himself dripping in sweat.

"You're great—these are amazing Fred," he says, beaming up at him and then examining the pictures. "Your camera accelerates my good looks to like, ten thousand per cent."

Freddie laughs.

"That I've been aware of," Fred says amused, trying to get John off-topic and suavely sitting on John's desk to collect the pictures. His eye catches Roger glaring from the other end of the classroom but he doesn't care.

John's hurting. Freddie assumes his life’s been shit enough to suspect he's been hurting ever since he was born because John doesn't kid when he says he hasn't had a great relationship with his family, he gets drunk too often just to remove things he doesn't know why he feels, he's always felt like an outsider in no place of belonging literally the single most thing that John ever had in his life that made him happy was Roger.

Roger meant too much to John and the audacity that he had to betray him like that was mind-boggling.

"I'll see these pictures later," John says, taking the stack Freddie hands him to his pockets.

Freddie returns John's tired smile with a brighter one. "I want them back by evening dear. With a cup of coffee, of course."

"Sure thing. It's a date," John jokes and there's an odd shift in temperature that makes the room warmer.

John may not realise but Freddie smirked, knowing that it was only Roger flaming in jealousy.

*******

  
John tries not sleeping in the library. With Tumblr and YouTube overused and the last fifteen minutes spent in using up the uni’s WiFi to update all his unnecessary shitload of apps, he’s not left with many options for entertainment except looking around for a cute guy. Then he remembers Freddie giving him all those pictures that he hadn’t yet seen.

John pulls them out and is surprised that most are pictures from high school days, some from middle school! John giggles at the memory and then proceeds to shuffle through the stack leisurely, but one picture catches his eye.

It’s a picture of Roger and him. Old, he doesn’t recall anyone clicking this? In the photograph, Roger has him pushed to the carpet, John remembers it’s from that time he had refused to give Roger his book and Roger resolved that teaching John a lesson meant tickling him past the point of suffocation.

It’s a simple moment, a plain picture, but John spends long looking at it. That look of happiness on his and Roger’s faces was like a masterpiece, utterly beautiful but tragically something whose glory could never be recreated.

John flips the picture over and flattens his palm over; he could make a coarse paper plane out of it or anything with it so that he stops looking at how happy they used to be-he used to be. But on the backside of that picture is something written in Freddie’s handwriting.

‘Your love is one in a million

You couldn't buy it any price

But of the 9.999 hundred thousand other loves,

Statistically, some of them would be equally nice. ’

John concerns about the mental well being of his friend for a long while before calling him. Freddie picks up instantly because he’s always on his phone.

"What shit are you playing?” John accuses, interrupting Freddie ’s chirp of ‘Hallo?’

Freddie denies from the other end, “Nothing! I'm not—did you see the message?"

"Yeah, I did. Even though it's plain English, I’m afraid I don’t get it, Fred."

He can hear Freddie facepalm from the other end. "It means...look acknowledging that I do know about your intense infatuation with David n’ all."

"True love," John corrects.

"Nope. Still, infatuation with David but you should, in my very expert opinion, give Roger a chance."

“Here I was thinking you’re into me but nope. You're vouching for Roger fucking Taylor,” John flails his hand as if Freddie could see him, "I'm not forgiving that asshole!"

"Y’know you have to do it. You’ll feel better. In simple terms."

"Forgiveness does not make people feel better,” John argues. “Especially not me."

Now he hears Freddie groan.

"Deaky darling, don't you see? He's been lurking around you—hell I bet he's even outside the library right now, waiting for you."

"I don't understand what he'd want with me. I don't wanna speak to him."

"Don't pretend like you have an adamantium skull and as if everything I'm trying to say isn't going through to that brain of yours because of it,” Freddie tells him in a warning tone.

John lets his head fall in tiredness, "I'm hanging up."

"Y’know all those flowers I kept bringing to your room when you got the pox last year, those were from Roger. And the gourmet chocolates too, I used to think he was divine because he made those. You know what you do to guys who make heavenly chocolates like that? You forgive them."

John bites his lips. That’s new information for him, but he can’t help but feel reminiscent of the gut feeling he had when Freddie used to drop by every single day of the month with flowers. He thought Freddie was just being sweet but turns out, Roger was the one sending them. And those chocolates were a luxury, John would never even dream of getting them. John remembered that when he was bedridden, he would always see Roger get onto his shining blue bicycle from his window in the morning.

Somehow, now that Freddie tells him it was Roger who bothered to care so much even though they weren’t friends; John feels the tightness in his chest dissipate, he knew it was him.

He would always want Roger to come upstairs to at least say a word to him but given the circumstances, it was hazardous.

"He was there for your grandma's funeral too. Even though you practically hate him, he's trying his best to reach you, John, don't you see there’s a prospect of fixing this—"

"Well, I wasn’t the one who asked him to try," John says coldly and hangs up.

*********

  
John has the misfortune to have Roger following him like a Neutrophil stalking a fresh piece of a bacterium to eat the next day. Roger simply follows him and refuses to back away or reduce the two-metre distance he was keeping persistent between them all the while. John feels abnormally attacked. Clearly, Roger would not stop following him until he’d made his notion heard.

John stops walking once Roger stops being the trash car to John’s tow truck. "Y’know you and me..." Roger talks behind John while he walks in the long hallway.

No, I most certainly don’t wanna know about you and me, John thinks and then begins walking again, trying to get as far as possible from him. But his ex-best friend is catching on fast this time, making the tightness and simply that pain in his chest concentrate beyond saturation.

"I don't want to speak to you," John snares, throwing a sour look and aiming his palm to push the glass door to the library. He turns back to give Roger a glare only to find that he’s already standing so close that he can hear him grit his teeth.

"Y’know I was being unfair,” Roger says nonchalantly, no trace of sincerity in that tongue, “You deserve an equal chance with David."

Some people hold anger well, John hopes to believe he’s one of those people but it’s been years trying to bottle up his wrath and label it saintly.

I’ve had enough of this shit. John turns back and slaps him, his anger warrants a powerful strike and he expects Roger to reciprocate with a harder slap but there isn't a trace of anger on his ex-best friend’s (alias: douchebag) face.

Just plain nothingness.

John stares at him, he wishes he had spiked for glares, he wishes Roger knew precisely how mad he was.

"I've been in love with David for years. I’ve waited for years. Listened to you fake supporting me for years and what do I get now? I get an asshole telling me that I deserve a chance as if he’s obligating me by letting me know that I'm as hopeless as he presumes me to be?"

Roger’s shuts his mouth. He looks down and then sourly gives John a killing stare. No guilt, John thinks. He isn’t the guy I used to know at all.

"Yes," Roger says blankly. "Are you...referring to me as the asshole? Just so we're clear."

John narrows his eyes, he’s astounded. "What else have you ever been to me?"

"Your friend,” Roger answers but this time John’s heart springs due to something else entirely. As much as he’s hoping Roger has come to him to apologise, he knows he’ll be shaming the cortex his parents gifted him with if he believed Roger and forgave him.

“Yeah. Right. Friend. Can you even spell it right? Cuz I’m pretty sure you learnt that word recently,” John bites back and Roger visibly winces. John takes it as his cue to get out of his eyes. He turns back but Roger reprimands. “I-I didn't sleep with David that night.”

A boulder flips in John’s stomach. “I didn’t ask you for the details.”

Roger opens and shuts his mouth, he’s sweating and his eyes look pleading. “The whole school wanted us to date but I never did, John. I never did.”

“Well, why are you telling me all of that? Why didn’t you? You should’ve just jumped on the opportunity!”

“John I’m-” begins the apology from Roger's mouth but John dryly laughs with no humour, only thick sarcasm. Such a pained one that it derails Roger from the apologetic monologue he’d planned to say.

“You expect me to believe that? You didn't even tell me the next day! Or any day!"

“You wouldn't believe me if I had told you! You don’t even believe me now!”

John's dilated pupils reclaim. Deep breaths, he tells himself, trying to follow.

Deep breaths.

But his heartbeat runs haywire once Roger swipes a hand through his blond hair, looking at him in a way that he feels electrocuted.

"I tried...not to hurt you...” Roger tells him carefully and John somehow believes this little thing, because Roger’s voice cracks in such a way that couldn’t have been a pretence.

But that doesn’t mean it’s food for forgiveness.

"You did it wrong. You don't know the pain of loving someone. I'm not a heartless asshole who makes out with his supposed friend’s long-time love and then shows up—"

"You-you don't really care about how I feel, right?"

"You're right I don't." John snaps but then he notices Roger is standing speechless, weird really. John scoffs with a roll of his eyes. “What did you even come here for? I suspect you're only talking ‘cause you wanted someone to fight with.”

Roger looks up, his blue eyes unmistakably teary and simply shooting beams of longing from themselves, “David wanted to meet you. Saturday night, in the library. I just wanted to convey a message.”

John’s throat runs dry once Roger smiles at him weakly. He didn’t hear what he just said, preoccupied in the sight of his best friend of all those years coming in front of him, exploding in fireworks. John’s seeing something different, he feels light-headed but it’s as if all the weight is running to his chest as he holds his breath.

He stands still as Roger walks metres away, his legs have forgotten walking, his mind has lost cache of what he was going to do before Roger came and shook him up.

Roger stops and turns back, “One more thing John,” he says with a second frail smile. John sees the tear tracks shine in the evening skyglow.

“I miss you,” Roger tells him before disappearing from the hall. John slaps his own face with two hands once he’s out of sight.

Stole the words right off my lips.

Asshole.

*********

  
“So kids,” Brian raps his hard file on the table before addressing his students. He doesn’t bother about the two kids making out behind the last rows even though it is very cringe-worthy. “Before I begin to impart my knowledge to you, students, I have something to notify about. And uh...any questions regarding yesterday’s lecture?”

A lanky student raises his arm. “Yes please,” Brian answers.

“Why is there a giant naked plastic tree in the main hall?” he asks and the question is not even amusing because Brian had paraphrased the new instalment for Christmas exactly like that. Giant naked plastic tree. It was a fitting name.

“That is what I wanted to tell you about...” Brian’s gaze runs over from John doodling something on his notebook and then to Roger who gets startled out of how he was engaged in staring at John.

Idiots, Brian thinks.

“You will be required to write your Christmas wish to Santa on a piece of paper and send it to me so that I may check if you didn’t draw a penis on the paper instead of what I instructed you to,” he announces. He can see Roger’s eyebrows climb up his forehead. “Those wishes will be put up on the said giant naked plastic tree as decorative items.”

“And if you are unable to do so by Saturday evening, which is Christmas day, of course, consider yourself a rotting carcass because I will hunt you down.”

The class do not let so much a sound of breathing.

Brian smiles, evilly. “Class dismissed.”

The students get up and roar, “WHAT?”

“It’s Christmas. Go party,” Brian tells them and hollering erupts, some kids begin to run towards him in a stupendous way just to get a hug. He sees kids wishing each other but he also notices that Roger is just staring at John as the younger picks up his things and curses under his breath about how coming to class had been a waste.

Brian notices how Roger drums his fingers against the denim pockets and there is unbelievable patience and longing in that gaze. Like he could wait forever for John to notice him and even if he’d just get a peek, he’d be content with it.

Brian mentally facepalms.

Complete idiots.


	4. Part 4

John bumps into David after class. He smiles, it’s a very bright, luminous smile; perfection really but John’s mind is elsewhere, envisioning how things would have been had he knocked on Roger’s door that night. But that wouldn’t change the fact that he had the guts to sleep with his long-time crush but John’s heart is making excuses for Roger and-

“Hi,” David says but John doesn’t snap out of that look in Roger’s hard eyes when they’d argued earlier until David waves a hand in front of his face.

John returns the smile mechanically, “Hey.” He raises an eyebrow at David and he just feels a pit darken in him because either it must be the fact that he’s old and not thirteen like when he used to be madly in love with David. He’s dreamt of a conversation like this, but it doesn’t match up to expectations of the past.

He feels sick.

It’s like the oxygen around him is disappearing, rendering him pukish as David looks sideways, “I wanted to—”

“To meet me in the library on Saturday. I came to know,” John finishes his sentence. Someday he used to think to finish each other’s sentences would be endearing but he just feels this urgency to get away that he’s doing it because it is irritating.

“Yeah,” David smiles. John returns it again, internally he’s gawking at himself at the disbelief at how he’s purposely blowing the one chance he has with him.

“I guess, I uh...I’ll see you around?” John says against his wish.

But it used to be his wish. Why is he not acting okay?

To this, he receives a blinding smile. David swaps numbers with him and there’s a text with a rabbit emoji waiting for him once he gets to his room. It takes away a bit of the loneliness.

David turns out to be very talkative and humorous, he agrees with John on every single thing, is a major support bomb and John is enjoying the conversation thoroughly when a text pops up.

Dickface Assignment Partner (Roger): I hope you’re happy.

That makes John snap out of his train of texting and boards him onto the thinking express.

He’s talking to David, whom he likes a lot. But he wouldn’t say he’s in love with him because David now is not the same from middle school. He’s different, different being the inflexion that John’s heart does not flutter, John’s head no longer fantasises. John has a kickass mentor in the form of Brian May, besides this. And he has Freddie, his teddy bear of support, Jim, his favourite person because he cooks for free and many other friends who’ve been there for him, never backing away. All parameters placed, he should be happy.

But something is missing.

John types back.

'I'm not happy'

He calls David, they exhaust the night listing reasons why X-Men would rule the Avengers. They talk long and till John's on the verge of wanting to sleep since David never runs out of things to chat about, he assumes.

It's going just as he'd wanted it to. David and he finally became friends which was the predecessor of being more later.

John closes his eyes for sleep after admitting to himself that he can try to be less miserable now, stop the age-old routine of pondering and hoping, he’s finally talking to David. He bites his lips, looking at the pictures of his friends and family on the adjacent wall. He should be happy, he deserves to be but he has to admit,

Someone is missing.

********

  
“This is the worst celebration we hold on Christmas,” Ronnie complains as all the university folk are told off to go and take their seats in the auditorium.

“Couldn’t agree more,” John apprehends as he looks around for ways to escape the boring ceremony and performances. Ronnie scoffs and compels John to take another route, just so that it might take longer.

“I heard the theatre club's doing The Beauty and the Beast. I mean, what the fuck? We're in university, not in the age of princesses–” John starts ranting in annoyance.

“Belle was not a princess.”

“She is a Disney princess. Fight me.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about that.”

“Shut up Ronnie! Wait—where are you taking me?”

“Backstage,” Ronnie says and John reflexively turns but then Ronnie has already grasped him and is hurling him into where all the costumes and buzzing of the theatre club was. John’s cheeks flamed at the thought that Roger was a member of the theatre club.

He was not ready to face him for reasons his mind hasn’t programmed yet.

John catches sight of Brian yelling at his phone, “What do you mean you twisted your ankle, Sally? I'll make you play the part with a twisted ankle! get yourself—”

Then Ronnie pushes John before Brian as if to say, did you order this hot piece of ass, Professor?

Brian lets out a relieved sigh followed by a satisfied smirk.

“Found a replacement.”

In a few seconds John is coerced into wearing that terrible white dress with his blue apron which should technically not be a dress but kitchen apparel of some sorts, he deduces. Not so surprisingly he looks pretty cute (he is cute, even in women's clothing. Wait, why was he agreeing to this?). The blue and white one sits well on him but the cons of wearing the Belle outfit is that he’s very uncomfortable with most of the theatre club ogling.

Brian glares at everyone who’s staring and John’s thankful for his straight-outta-hellfire Professor. But he can’t help but complain. “Why don’t you get one of the girls to do this part? This dress is super tight and I don’t know what to do! I’m not in this club!”

“We have exactly three girls in the drama club and they’ve got roles already, you're our only option left, John. Please, I wouldn't have asked you to do this had Sally not sprained her ankle. All you have to do is keep running away from Paul and then dance with Freddie the beast and then dance with—”

“We’re cutting it short,” Ronnie interrupts. “The yellow gown won’t fit John. We’re ending it right when the beast turns human.” John rejoices inside. Oh, thank God.

“This costume is suffocating,” Freddie complains having sat in a corner with the beast head-on. John groans, “Fine. But I’m only doing this because you’re my teacher—why are you doing Beauty and the Beast anyway!?”

“Because if we did anything else nobody would have come to watch the annual show, boring as it already is.”

John's face drops at how pathetic Fred looks with a stylus difficulty balanced in his hairy hand. “That’s the Chewbacca costume, isn’t it?”

Ronnie gives a hyper and affirmative nod.

********** 

  
A stage has never been a problem with John. He’s been an active participant in the school choirs before he recognised his love for football. He probably feels jittery right now, as Paul is flashing his super build as Gaston (totally in character), only because it’s been a long time since he’s performed in front of people.

He’s oddly enjoying it, watching the songs and lip-syncing go on point and he almost forgets his cue to enter until Brain pushes him on the stage. Paul makes sure to not make it obvious that John hasn’t practised with them and proceeds with taking the lead. It’s all very easy after that.

Yeah. I can do this. I should be in the Royal Shakespeare theatre fuck I am so good at this, John gloats internally after Belle’s told the beast she loves him and this elicits whimpers from the ground. He’s worried about how he’d stepped on Freddie’s foot earlier while dancing but he should focus once the next scene approaches with dazzling glitter lighting and the lights go out.

The music slows down. The smoke clears. The second Roger appears as behind Freddie’s beast costume, John's cursing in swears that haven’t been invented yet.

How did I not see that coming? Of course, Roger is in the theatre club, of course, he is an amazing actor, of course, he is criminally good looking —stupid so stupid I feel like dumping myself in lava —

He stops thinking once Roger’s blue eyes chase John's after he realises he’s human. He hugs him and then John’s only left with wishing that look he had on his face was true. Like Roger didn’t hate him like Roger never ignored him.

Like nothing had ever changed between them.

Roger smiles at him, running both thumbs over John’s cheeks. He retorts with a grin, he does feel happy even though it is only an act.

John’s face lights up like a new star born out of the darkness and he understands what the world is trying to say to him.

Roger inches closer than he could possibly be, eyes glassy and his expression hard to read for a second.

John purses his lips. I can never be happy unless I see you be the same, if not with me.

The audience gasps and Pual elbows Ronnie to stop and look from the sidebars. John reaches up to run his palm over Roger's cheek, momentarily forgetting the script he had hastily read or the last minute directions.

"You saved me," Roger says and there's so much real emotion—Oh God he's perfect, John finds himself drawn closer.

And then John's being flung forward, lips colliding with Roger's as the audience applauses and he gets it. He gets that he should return the kiss not just because his body is craving it, not just because he’s crumbling in want—simply magnetised even more towards Roger, but also since it is at the end, a show. The play should end with a kiss. Customary romance trope. Completely fine.

But what’s not fine is the crux, the curtains come down to the deafening sounds of applause, the theatre club begins removing plugging but Roger and he are in another world of sorts, indifferent to anything but each other. Dim scarlet colour envelopes them but Roger's lips don't leave John's, he kisses him desperately, relatching with more fervour after every time they pull apart for air and John is mad—he's angry that he's letting himself get kissed by Roger like this, he's mad that he seems so vulnerable, so incapable of pushing Roger away.

But he stands there, hands knotted in Roger's hair, mind lost in the insanity and desire that Roger's lips are triggering in new ways, arms around his neck, nails digging into his cape—heart racing with love.

He lets Roger kiss him. Again and again.

He just does.

Roger doesn’t push his tongue in, only licking on the seam of John's lips even though John opens his mouth wantonly. He’s too weak for his brain to kick back into work.

They let go after what seems hours of making out and both let awkward silence overlap them before someone calls for the stage to be cleared. John runs over his mental portfolio of things he wants to say to Roger.

 _Okay, good work. We just kissed like we were going to fuck on stage and I still hate you. You look really hot in that cape. I hate you. How could you kiss me like that? I don’t understand_ — but all that comes out from his mouth courtesy of self-consciousness (since Roger's eyes are raking up and down his body), “This dress is so...”

“Ugly,” Roger finishes, a mischievous glint like the one John is so familiar with, resurfacing. He can’t control his smile.

“Exactly the word I was looking for,” John replies hoping for a laugh or something from Roger that makes him believe things can be fixed.

But Roger ruins the moment. “David was searching for you...”

“Yeah. Um. I should leave.”

John has never gotten kicked in the stomach but that feeling when Roger lets him go most certainly would feel worse than it.

******** 

  
“What’s got you looking like this?” Brian says once he spots Roger in the lobby connected with the main hall. He’s looking at all the hung up Christmas wishes on the tree, those shiny papers becoming a leaf. After the celebration, the students have left for home except a few, so the whole place is empty, a silence looms everywhere.

Roger is lost in thoughts. Perhaps a single thought.

“Roger, if this is about what happened—”

“I know you threatened to fail me if I ever hurt John again but I—” Roger instantly covers his face to compress it so that tears don’t spill out.

Brian presses his hand on his arm, “Get some rest. And you need to submit your Christmas wish to me. If you don’t, that’s gonna get you failed.”

Roger doesn’t smile. _I should really stop with the jokes_ , Brian thinks.

“You’ve still got him, Roger,” the professor tells him reassuringly, trying to brighten him up.

“I lost him a long time back,” he replies and Brian is interrupted by Ronnie calling him for something. “I’ll submit it by evening. Thanks, sir,” Roger says and heads for his room. Each step feels like he’s growing heavier by the second.

“Is he okay?” Ronnie asks as Brian reaches him. “I believe so,” Brian answers, quite dejectedly himself.

Ronnie quirks an eyebrow. “Explain why sir?” There’s good humour in it but it leaves Brian pissed anyway because of why Freddie thought to publicise something like that was not really necessary. Everyone who bothers reading the university blog does know about the fight.

“You saw that climax right?” Brian questions, walking past Ronnie and the theatre club member follows, flummoxed.

“Of course, it was spectacular. That kiss looked real,” Ronnie tells him excitedly.

Brian faked a smile, a cloud of tiredness raining exhaustion over him before he continued.

“That kiss, Veronica; wasn’t in the script.”


	5. Part 5

  
When John reaches the library, he’s struck in awe because the decoration looks amazing. There are singling bells everywhere, he’d hate to bump into someone under the ridiculous amount of mistletoes on the upper shelves.

“John,” he hears David say.

No mistletoe. No mistletoe. Please, no mistletoe.

“We’re under mistletoe,” David says gleefully and John goes pale, kisses usually aren’t a huge deal to him, he’s practically kissed everyone on campus but then this feels almost like a betrayal.

“I’m kidding,” David says giggling and John is relieved. He doesn’t understand that he used to crush on David really bad in middle school. He just wants to go home and sleep his weariness away.

“What I wanted to ask was...will you go out with me?”

John gulps. It’s the moment he used to dream of. It’s here. David is standing before him, they are under mistletoe for fuck’s sake, but he doesn’t understand why he isn’t making a move, why he isn’t saying yes like he used to think.

David is waiting, patiently. The colour disappears from John’s face and maybe it’s obvious on John’s face and David is not unobservant. David walks away, “I should’ve known.”

John is confused, “What?”

“You’re already taken,” David points out, pinning something in the air which John can’t quite understand.

John is still confused, “What?”

“You’re with-wait, you don’t know?”

It’s getting on the tip of John’s patience, “What?”

David backs of defensively, smirking, “I guess I can’t tell you then. You’ve got to find out yourself.” And then he runs out of the library, leaving John alone.

John shrugs to no one and presses the spot on his head which was growing a headache. Whatever the hell was that.

When he gets to the dorm, it’s a different story. He can’t close his eyes without hoping Roger would press his lips on his, he can’t look at his hands without revisiting the feeling of running them through Roger’s hair, it’s like he can’t do anything without being reminded of him.

He turns the radio on.

'All I want for Christmas is you—'

John switches the radio off aggressively. He should book a flight home, get away from this shit.

Or he could face it. Like the grown-up adult man he was.

He scrolls through his contacts and when he finds Dickface Assignment Partner, he presses call.

And then he waits.

Pick up, Roger. No response. He calls again before it goes to voicemail. Pick up so that I can tell you that I...

Roger’s cell phone rings repeatedly in the lobby and with no one in there, it’s only heard by the walls and furniture. Roger is walking to Brian’s office, a slip of paper in his hand, a hole punched at one end. He hands it to Brian and the teacher looks at the blank paper, sighing, “Still no clue about what you want?”

“I don't want anything, I realised,” Roger says. Brian rolls his eyes and Roger is taken aback, he has never seen a teacher behave with such swank. “Yeah right. If ‘anything’ was equivalent to ‘things that are not John.”

Roger blushes and he looks out of the window at the darkening sky. Brian scoffs and pushes a box towards him. “Why don't you just go over these cards others submitted and write a cliché answer like world domination and stop wasting my time—I have to create the question paper you will cry about.”

“Uh...I ace your subject sir?”

“Okay, whatever. The question paper others will cry about.”

Roger takes a seat and scribbles but then strikes it off. The process keeps on going until Brian snaps, “What're you being so indecisive for?”

“I don’t know, I’ve been feeling weird,” Roger admits and Brian pats his head, taking a seat beside. “And everyone’s written shit like find love of life. Gross.”

“Just out of curiosity, if you had a love of your life whom you could call your soul mate or whatever, and you found them, what would you do?”

“Take him to the sixteenth Grey’s street,” Roger replies mechanically. The professor is left nonplussed as Roger continues. “Pin him on the tree beside the river and kiss him under the snow—Hey! Don't roll your eyes! I haven't changed that answer since I was sixteen!”

“Really? Snow?” Brian says, amused, “I know this place used to be pretty cold but I'm sure you know that it hasn't snowed since ages.”

Roger stares judgmentally at his teacher. “You really have lived that long, haven't you?”

Brian gives him a lightning stare. The younger’s mouth closes in fear. “With reference to the actual situation at hand...If John and you weren't ex-best friends or wouldn't have had that history and the erotic kiss and all the toxic waste between you two...what would you have done?”

Roger shivers, “I would've said ‘hey, you're cute, you up for a movie sometime?’”

“Cliché. But I like it. What's stopping you from doing that now?” Brian tells him but Roger still has a dumb face on.

“Erm...all of those things you just said? The toxic waste and everything?”

“Then wish for those things to go away. You never know what might happen,” Brian says and leaves him alone with the piece of paper and a pen.

After a moment, Roger manages to scribble something on the card.

**********

38 calls.

One more and John will give up because it’s already hopeless of him. He should’ve just stuck with staying mad at Roger. Roger is probably wiped out of all possible feelings, and it’s not surprising he’s ignoring John.

John presses call one more time. Just one more time and then he’ll spend Christmas night alone, in a crowded cafe with his friends long gone for their respective homes and with no family to be warm and welcoming to him.

**********

Without checking his phone, Roger grabs the keys to his car and roams the city before entering the coffee hub. The city has darkened; everything is so Christmas he’s nauseated at the smell of cakes.

Roger finds John in a heartbeat, he’s always loved how he smells like coffee, and of all the nights it’s Christmas, the streets are blinking up brighter, a corrective to the new moon. Roger feels as if it was the beating of his heart that led him to the old café right beside the turning.

He can see John through the glass wall facing the street even though John is busy reading some book on his phone and after a second John notices a strange man staring at him from the glass and he almost scares the shit out of himself. What the fuck is Roger doing here? Roger grins at him and it makes John blush even though he’s baffled.

Before Roger gets more embarrassing, John hides in the queue before the counter he hopes to stay hidden there but then Roger gets into the old fashioned, low ceiling cafe. He breaks into the line right before John’s going to place his order.

“I'd like to pay for this gentleman here,” Roger says and the old lady is already smitten much to John’s astonishment.

“Fuck Roger you can't just—you don't even know what I'm ordering!”

“Actually I do. You always get the same thing.”

John stares at him like he’s a mutant.

“You're welcome,” Roger says smugly.

*********

  
_What does he want from me?_ John thinks as Roger waits in line for them. Occasionally, he glances at John who’s sitting on one of the tables far from the glass wall he’s not ready for a second person scaring him to cardiac arrest. John waits as Roger brings their drinks and takes a seat opposite him, smiling and his eyes requesting him to take the coffee from the tray.

“Stop staring at me like I’m the map to Atlantis,” John growls but Roger steels his look, suddenly his face looks so high definition that John’s heart is missing beats.

"And thanks for the coffee, which I obviously didn't ask for,” he says, being mean is one way of ignoring the way Roger is looking at him.

“I already said you're welcome,” Roger reminds and swallows once John presses the rim of the cup to his lips. “I-I wanted to know if you could-”

“Blend your balls for destroying my peace?” John assumes with an evil smile but Roger isn’t paying heed.

“If you could stop being mad at me for a day—can you do that?” Roger says so earnestly that John gets half-convinced into saying yes albeit still mad. Roger takes a sip from John’s coffee cup (he always used to do that and John realises how much he missed the do-not-touch-my-coffee agreement). “We were writing Christmas wishes and then I realised that what I really wanted was one day with you if that’s the least I can hope for. One day when you’re not mad at me.”

Roger expects John to hit him once he sees him pulling his sleeve up. Contrarily, John looks at his watch contemplatively. “Offer expires the moment the clock strikes twelve,” John tells him.

Roger’s eyes widen, “Really? Two hours? You hate me that much?”

“It's actually one hour and 36 minutes. And yes I do. Starting now I'm not mad at you, but I will be, at and after 12 o clock. And for eternity thereafter,” John finishes and Roger had wanted a bit more time. One hour and 36 minutes weren’t enough to fix their relationship.

“Okay then,” Roger agrees, grabbing John's hand gently and walking him to his car. John follows, heart in his throat.

_I’ll make the most of it._

**********

Only the worst tourist guide would think walking on the sixteenth Grey’s street on one of the coldest nights of the year was a good idea.

To John, Roger is that worst tourist guide. After a forty-five minute drive in which the music kept on being switched from Guns N Roses to The Beatles, Roger’s got John to the pavement, and John collapses on the bench there only to spring up instantly. “Yikes!”

Roger laughs another thing about it that John had missed so much. “Ice hit your butt didn’t it?” he asks, still laughing.

“It’s fucking sub-zero!” John says, kicking the bench as punishment and then feeling a lot better about himself.

Roger sits down on the bench, shivering as the cold spreads through the underside of his thighs. “You can sit on my lap,” he offers and given all the fission of emotions that are going on in John’s head, he flatly rejects, “No thank you.”

Roger pouts. _I hate your lips_ , John thinks. _I so fucking hate your lips._

“So you brought me here to freeze me to death?” John asks but Roger bites his lips and pats the spot beside him, “I’ll tell you if you sat down.”

“Fine, it’s weird y’know? I don’t understand why you’d spend Christmas with me. I’m no one to you.” The way John says it, it’s not expressing sadness, revolt; he says it as if he’s stating a fact.

“I’m not gonna lie John but...” Roger says, looking down, “I tried forgetting you but I could not forget that I needed you.”

And John’s heart skips for him, nothing new but it’s a beautiful feeling still, seeing Roger with him, getting to talk, to share to open up.

He feels like a sixteen-year-old kid again, gazing up at the stars, cuddled up against Roger.

And to think that he was willing to risk this feeling, that he had risked and let Roger go, leading to every second of his absence feeling like mortal torture, John can’t trust himself to think he could live with himself.

John gets up from the bench, he walks towards the river, its blackness shining, and there are sounds of carols in the distance. He turns back to look Roger in the eye, “Do you hate me?”

Roger makes a confused hand gesture. John shakes his head repeating, “For everything that has happened to us. Do you hate me?”

“No,” Roger says proceeding to get up and pulls John towards him. _I never stopped loving you_.

It’s the first time he's ever held him so intimately, nothing could ever come close to this. Roger shuts his eyes tight and inhales the chilly air his arms moving over John's back, grasping tight. John wonders if he knows he's melting at each little touch, uneasy with the sudden warmth Roger wrapped around him is bringing him.

They hug for a long time; John’s convinced he’s never going to get another hug so he holds on tight. They don't say anything, John doesn't want to say anything and Roger has the weight of apologies on his tongue but he doesn’t know how to tell them. He knows the time is ticking it's almost going to be—

Roger's nose accidentally brushes John's cheek and John reflexively pushes him away with added strength and stares.

John looks out of breath. His is face rendered pale by the cold and it just darkens his lips, making them more prominent and desirable.

"Please don't yell ‘sexual harassment’", Roger pleads because John is fuming, mouth open and breathing hard.

"You...you dared to-to—"

"Yeah I dared to! I'm sorry! I don't know how to say this at all!" Roger exclaims, flailing his arms. “I’m sorry. For everythi—”

"Sorry doesn't fix anything!"

But then the church bells ring loud and clear, indicating them it’s twelve o’ clock. A wave of disappointment runs over Roger, he looks down and then to the boy he loves.

The bells snap them out of how angry they were and in the silence of a few moments, John doesn't know what to do as Roger takes steps back, his eyes fixed on his own and he stops just to say dejectedly, “It’s twelve. You can go back to hating me.”

Truth is, John doesn’t, he can’t. He can never hate him. Roger is the one ray of hope that came to chase his shadows away, Roger supporting him is the reason behind why he’s still playing football because Roger was the first person who believed he could be the best at it. And John knows Roger is the only one whose hand he wants to hold.

If he walks away now, what is left of John? But John’s eyes don’t lie, Roger is walking away and John is reluctant to make him stay but he doesn’t have the words to make him stay. No—Please don’t...not again—

“I’m in love with you,” John says, his lips shaking in the cold.

John may not be looking, but Roger’s features soften, it’s as if he’s melting. He appears in front of him, carefully taking off John’s thin glasses and John shuts his teary eyes, clutches onto him and is whispering, “Don’t go.” Roger holds John’s hand in his free one, is pinning him against the tree and John feels he's imagining the cold softness alighting on his head.

Roger believes it's a symbol from heaven once it begins to snow.

So he leans down to smash their lips together in a simple yet magical kiss. And Roger will always remember this because he has never been more in love with anyone other than John. Never was, never will be.

********

  
“You were right,” Brian admits, walking into the headmaster’s office to hand him his bagels and biscuit.

Headmaster McCartney jumps on the food and in between gorging on the delicacies; he pauses to ask, “What was I right about?”

“Love stories aren’t fickle, I’ve realised,” Brian says and the headmaster smiles knowingly.

“Gotten hitched I see,” McCartney winks suggestively but then Brain knows why he’s admitting this to his narcissistic employer, it’s because from the window he can see two idiots named Roger Taylor and John Deacon playing snowball fight in the morning and laughing like it’s the most fun they’ve had in centuries, falling over their feet buried in the snow.

Brian moves toward the exit, smiling after he sees Roger pull John in a kiss. He finally sees John break into the best smile in ages and Roger looks utterly smitten.

“No...just happy for two kids,” he answers the headmaster and the door hinges shut.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on a roll


End file.
